


Sold Out the World

by imbetteronpaperattwointhemorning



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety, Cyberpunk, F/M, Fainting, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:01:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28932942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbetteronpaperattwointhemorning/pseuds/imbetteronpaperattwointhemorning
Summary: The world went black. The kind of black that sucks the world into it without a trace, Arasaka black. The words on the halo were gone just like that, nothing. No, Jenkins. No, Europe. No problems. My life coach used to say "If you meditate the world will just fade into the background and all the negative thoughts will just drift away like clouds." That never happened when I fucking meditated. It would always just be “Biotechnica,” “corporate espionage,” “trade secrets,” “Arthur,” and “Arasaka.” They would linger like toxic gas just above all of my "happy" thoughts. No matter how much the cyberware suppressed the stress hormones I still felt like they were there at full power.
Relationships: Arthur Jenkins/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V
Comments: 12
Kudos: 18





	1. The Man Who Sold the World

The world went black. The kind of black that sucks the world into it without a trace, Arasaka black. The words on the halo were gone just like that, nothing. No, Jenkins. No, Europe. No problems. My life coach used to say "If you meditate the world will just fade into the background and all the negative thoughts will just drift away like clouds." That never happened when I fucking meditated. It would always just be “Biotechnica,” “corporate espionage,” “trade secrets,” “Arthur,” and “Arasaka.” They would linger like toxic gas just above all of my "happy" thoughts. No matter how much the cyberware suppressed the stress hormones I still felt like they were there at full power.

Black.

Black.

Reset. . .

Booting. . .

Loading . . .

Fucking back!

Not a total reset. A fall into that thick Arasaka black. Just suddenly as the world was gone and the oxygen in my lungs wasn’t, everything came back again. Still, Arasaka black because it was an Arasaka lobby. Well, it was a ceiling of the lobby. I was staring at the ceiling because I had fainted falling backward onto the floor. I could feel the vibrations of everyone’s dangerous corporate heels clacking around like agro-maracas punctuated by tense rage whispers into phones. I should have known the Corpo was going to kick this rat when no one came over to help me. Not a single person even feigned concern. Instead, I lay, motionless as my cyberware brought my body back to some semblance of normal panic. Here I was, anxiety-ridden with a bunch of my fellow corpo rats almost stepping on me. People would pay a lot for that kind of activity on Jig Jig street. I got it as a bonus with the job: Corporate Intelligence Officer Junior, Valerie Pondsmith, Arasaka Corporation, 401K, Trauma Coverage, Konpeki Rewards Account, and non-sexual (but sexual if you’re into that kind of thing) corpos stepping on you.

When I gained full use of my body after my little panic attack, I soon regretted it. I felt the real fish sushi and mid-shelf champagne from lunch clawing back up my throat. Fuck, fuck, fuck, I lurched forward sitting up as the final pieces of the world fell into place. Reality slamming back into me one sensation at a time. An aching head from the fall. Slow thump of anxiety in my mind.

Ring.

Jenkins?

“Trauma team. Your vitals have stabilized. Do you require assistance?” Good old corporate coverage.

“No, that won’t be necessary.” I really should have asked if they would kill Abernathy shouldn’t I have? Missed opportunities.

“Our readings indicate that you were out for 30-“

“I said, I’m fine. Please I’m about to go to a meeting. Also, isn’t my coverage for response times below 3 minutes. Where were you?” Ever hung up on Trauma Team? I did.

All of the stress and paranoia back. My stomach churned and I felt another familiar feeling, stomach acid gurgling up. I ran to the restroom causing my own heels to clack out of step with the rest of the rats. I reached the sink just in time to splatter it with the contents of my stomach. My throat ached with acid.

Ringing.

Jenkins again? Fuck.

“Hey, you alright chica?” Jackie's voice felt like a warm hug.

“Some shit happened today.” I splashed water over my hands and wiped my mouth. All the while willfully ignoring the substandard water pressure of an Arasaka bathroom. Trauma Team will get me in 3, allegedly, but if I want to wash my hands efficiently, nope. That’s asking Daddy Saburo for too much.

“That’s a biz’ or something extra Corpo nuts been cooking.” I could tell when Jackie was disapproving but curious. He didn’t like what I did. I could never quite place if it was anti-corporate sentiment, friend based concern, or jealously at the ease with which the world sought to treat me. I was always a corpo even before I consented to it. So I hoped he hadn't held it against me.

Daddy was a big shot: Counter Intelligence. The man with the plan. He helped Arasaka slide back into Night City and, in return, the company made him a rich man who could give his family a rich life. If Saburo was king, my dad was a feudal lord and knight who pledged fealty and a portion of his immense rich talent to his leader so he could spend his time in a plush castle. A castle I lived in like a true noble who got real food on special occasions and all that a girl could want on every other day of the year. All my father asked for in return for my comfort was that I follow him into that brick of pure Arasaka inky black in Corpo Plaza. When he was alive, I felt I couldn’t make it without him. When he died, I stayed because I felt I owed him. When my mother died, I stayed because I didn’t have anything else.

“Shit went south in Europe. Frankfurt. Our agents got outted. It’s a fucking mess.” I looked in the mirror to inspect my attempt at achieving normalcy. The taste of acid still lingered in my throat. I filled my palms with water then took a gulp and gargled it. A man stood by the door gawking at me. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He had the same black suit like everyone else, but something felt off. His eyes lingered on me longer than normal and in a less interested and obvious than mere perversion. I spit into the sink.

“What the fuck do you want?!” I said. He walked away.

“What was that?” Jackie concerned.

“Nothing some gonk in the bathroom. I have to go.”

“You got this V? You ok?”

“You know, another day in the maze looking for cheese.”

“Take care of yourself, V”

Saburo on the hill and the rest of us clawing through the maze for a chance to touch his feet. I used to say that when Abernathy pulled the plug on me at Lizzie’s that was the end of my corporate tenure. No, that’s not really the truth. The end was on that cold stone floor at Arasaka. That’s when V as everyone knew her, died. With that guy, Abernathy’s guy lingering scanning me in the bathroom. That's the moment. I wonder who is the rat really, Johnny? I think it was him.

*****

Arthur? What to say about Arthur? He’s handsome. He’s reckless. No, not reckless. Aggressive is the word. See when men are reckless and don’t give a fuck about anybody, but themselves, everyone calls them, “Aggressive” and “Type A.” Jenkins is Type A because manipulative asshole would be rude. Don’t let him fool you though. He used to be a junior licking boots like me. He used to be uptight and accommodating to superiors and a sniveling pugnacious little prick to his other juniors. Now, he outsources most of the bitch work but back in the day he would iron his own suits and fold his own underwear. He would look at Konpeki Hotels with a reverence.

As the years progressed he climbed and climbed. He was a petulant child growing fat and indulgent as the years of accumulating corporate power got to him. He was what people always accused me of being, greedy. He has staff now for his underwear folding and his suit ironing. He had me for his pugnacious little prick activities and weaseling.

I walked into his office as I had so many times before. I watched as he pulled his little parlor trick. He did his little song and dance for Abernathy. She is a bitch. A point of note, when men see an “Aggressive” or “Type A” woman, they call her a bitch. I have been told I was a bitch many times. It is true, I am a bitch. I am a bitch because I take care of myself. Not always the best care, as you’ll see, but I try not to let people get in my way and up until some very narrow exceptions. I was a successful corporate bitch. It killed me every day repeatedly. Despite this, I was preem bitch.

“Abernathy again, that fucking cunt.” He was off the phone abruptly.

“She got the drop on you before.” The words had trouble making it past my acid-soaked throat. I felt the stress spiking a bit. Some of it was Frankfurt, some were other things.

“She always does shit like this but I got her now.” He stood from his massive, but largely underutilized desk, to his much, more frequently used bar. I watched as he poured. We had been here before. Drinks, his corporate complaining, my soft suggestions, his hamfisted plans, and our corporate fumblings. He gestured for me to sit on the couch. I complied. My stress level slowly rising the world wasn’t going black again, thank god. However, in their stead my palms had decided to sweat. He handed a drink to me. Whiskey, top-shelf. My hand shook slightly as I took it. I took a drink nearly draining the entire glass.

“V, I can trust you right. You know, you’re … very special to me.” He sat close and spoke in a small whisper. _Some real Dale Carnegie shit is going to happen_ , I thought. He took a deep gulp of whiskey. He brought his hand to my face and traced my jaw. “I trust you. After Frankfurt and Tokyo. You are so special.” He leaned close again, his thumb resting over my mouth. _If he kisses me he’s in for a surprise_ , a smile crept over my face at my own joke. In typical narcissistic style, he equated my momentary half-smile for acceptance and continued.

“On that table is a shard and 40,000 eddies in cash.” He still held my head softly for a moment then loosened his hand and leaned over me to the table. He placed his whiskey down then stood. I smelled his cologne. That high-end shit you could smell coming for miles. I thought about the company trips on business. All the days were spent in meetings and the nights in bed. How the sheets stunk of our bodies and prominently his cologne. My clothes and bed always smelled of him for weeks after our nights together. Sometimes if he was out of town I wouldn’t have them washed until he returned.

Don’t judge me ok. Who hasn’t fallen for some gonk dude? He’s a jerk, but for a few months, he was my jerk. I don’t know, maybe it’s some stupid dad Freud shit. Johnny said it was but Johnny’s a prick with a big mouth and not a Ph.D. in psychology so fuck you for judging me. I was 27, you’re supposed to fuck bad for you guys when you’re 27. Not married ones that you work for, I get it. Sometimes I take care of myself. Other times, I did the opposite, ok?

Arthur placed his cup on the table and stood. He bent and removed a shard from the table. Again, he reached out to touch me placing his hand how it was before. He was eye level with me sitting opposite me on the coffee table. His breath hitting my chin. He pushed my hair back softly as he had before so many times and slipped the shard into my neck. He brought his other hand so he was now holding my head while Abernathy’s life sprung into stark red relief over this face. All of the figurative bodies and their various resting places. All the ways to destroy her. I scanned quickly as names, addresses, accounts, and various other details flew before me. My cyberware digested it.

His eyes were level with mine. I ignored the text to take him in. His smell. I eyed how his body rested beneath his clothes. I loved how broad his shoulders were and the squareness of his jaw. His eyes focused on me that close was intoxicating. It almost did look like he really loved me. The words disappeared from my line of sight so the only thing before me was his face and the vague neon glimmer of Night City beyond the window.

“Something like what she did to us needs retaliation.” He rubbed his thumbs on either side of my jaw.

“If Abernathy finds out about this, we’re toast. We’re dead.” I felt the acid in my throat again. My hands grabbed each of his wrists.

“Frankfurt is belly up V. We’re already dead. If you can do this, maybe we can prove what she did to undercut us. Maybe, we can live. Do this, for me. Do this for us.” He was forceful in tone, but his eyes were pleading.

“I don’t have a choice. Do I?”

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” He removed a hand from my chin and brushed my hair back. _That was a no_ , I thought. “You won’t disappoint me? Right? My gorgeous, smart, savvy, deadly Valerie.” He kissed the words into my neck. The familiar feeling of his breath on my neck calmed me. I slipped my hands through his hair for one of the last times ever. He kissed his way up to my forehead and pulled back. He cupped my face and looked into my eyes. _Fuck, maybe you do love me_ , I thought looking into his eyes. He probably didn’t, but isn’t it fun to pretend.

“If we do this, it will get her off our case forever.” He kissed me on the mouth this time. If the remnants of downstairs were still present it didn’t show. His lips parted mine as they always had. My right hand moved to his hair and my left to his strong chest. We continued like this for an hour or seconds. I couldn't tell. He rested his forehead against mine so our noses touched in the middle of a small eternity of closeness.

“I’ll do it.” I whispered the words. He kissed me again. A reward for my good behavior no doubt. He pulled away slightly and kissed my forehead. A kiss goodbye. His halo must have rung because he went from holding me to dismissively yelling in an instant. His hands slipped from my cheeks and his corporate aggression resurfaced. I sat on the couch looking at his return to his desk. Feeling the absence of where he was a moment ago.

Well, shit. Goodbye, Arthur. Goodbye, Arasaka. Hello, AV. Hello, piss scented city. Hello, rest of my comedically short fucking life.

****

“I’ve sold out half the world. To get where I am today.” Arthur told me. He laid diagonally next to me in the bed. A plate of almost real caviar and oysters between us. Condensation melted off the oyster plate into the sheets. Just Ads was playing barely audibly and in German behind me on the TV.

“What about the other half?” I asked him.

“They paid me for it.” He shrugged. He chugged his champagne and shotgunned an oyster. “Can I ask you something?”

When a man asks if he can ask you something, the following something is never good. If it was something normal to ask, he would just ask it. When he asks something like this, he’s asking for permission. Permission to ask something he shouldn’t be asking. He definitely knows he shouldn’t be asking. Especially, in this scenario. In this scenario, there is very little a man who has spent a period of the night with his head between your legs can ask you that is inappropriate. In fact, things on the inappropriate spectrum that would require pre-approval are way the fuck up the I-cannot-ask-you-this-scale. They are so high that someone you’ve let do crazy things to you and you’ve done crazy things to them can still not ask them. Some things are so off-topic that no one asks them. But, he did. The first man in my life to do so and apparently not the last.

“Sure.” Oh, me you stupid bitch.

“Do you love me?” The words hung in the air.

“Arthur, are you going soft on me?” I scanned his face for some sign of seriousness. He looked like a little boy ashamed of himself. His normally pristine hair was disheveled from my hands running through it. I suddenly felt rude, “What do you mean?”

“My mom used to say that if you love someone you put them before yourself. You would even sacrifice yourself for them.” He said. “Valerie, would you do something like that for me? I don’t think anyone ever has.” It was hard to tell if he was really asking. He seemed so sad. I remember thinking this is some sort of game? A trap? Was he thinking of leaving his wife for me?

“Yes.” I looked at him, for what felt like the first time.

He threw the tray between us on the floor. He pulled me to him. He kissed me. Not a typical kiss. The same type of hungry desperate kiss that he gave me in his office. This was like the last kiss. It was a gift kiss. A good behavior smooch. He climbed on top of me. His broad chest pressed above me and his hips against mine. He took his right hand and pinned my arm above my head while he balanced the rest of his weight on his left. He held kissed my chest and neck as he waited for his body to catch up with his intentions. Just Ads still droned in the background on the TV. Frankfurt was visible over his shoulder. He loosened his grip on my hand and slid off the bed to part my legs.

“Do you love me?” I sat up on my elbows. He kissed my inner thigh.

“Arthur, do you love me?” His eyes looked at me. His tongue teasing me gently. He crawled back up from the edge of the bed. He kissed me. I could taste myself on his lips.

“I adore you, Valerie.” He kissed his way back down my body.

The next day we were gone from Frankfurt and not too long after, so were our agents. Eventually, he was gone too. Then, I was gone for a bit. One of us told the truth that day. The other, I don’t know. I don’t think men like Arthur and Johnny can love anybody. I just think they can come really, really close to loving you and for both of you, it feels like love. For some people, they don’t know the difference and it feels like enough. For others, they know it’s not real.


	2. Severance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> V reinvents herself after a fall from grace.

The sheets were rough. My tears had subsided and all that was left was a feeling of fullness in my sinuses. My eyes hurt from the rapture of anguish and fear. A cross hung above the small cot I lay in. Jesus’s toned figure hanging agonizing in perpetuity. There is no God in Night City. However, there is a God. A false idol of corporate greed I worshiped with the fervor of a dying man evading the inevitable. All that stress and fear, and the worst had come. The demon had summoned me and the reaper had come. 

Satan was the prettiest of God’s angels. That’s what the Bible says. That he was the most glorious of angels. He was the purest and the strongest. He lashed out at God and became too haughty. He fell from grace as a result. After the fall, he made a better world. An underworld. 

Did he stop to mourn God I wonder? Did he miss him? 

I missed Arasaka. I didn’t know any better. I only knew the bile rising in the back of my throat and the whispers that rang louder than screams. There were so many Nights I lay alone in the dark waiting for the day to break. I lay unwilling to relax as the stresses of the next day overwhelmed me. I raced through worsening scenarios until exhaustion overcame me and sleep came or the day broke. Now, a new type of fear emerged: fear of freedom. 

Would I live in this underworld or weep at the foot of God for his clemency? 

I called Arthur immediately after Lizzie's. Each time no response. I thought of him. His square jaw, his blue eyes, and his soft hair. The feelings of his hands on me. His lips on mine. Our fevered fumblings in the dark. His stillness in the night as he slept as my mind raced uninterested in slumber. His chest rising and falling as he breathed. 

I was used to death. My father died. My mother died. Everyone else had died either before my time or before I knew them enough to care. After my father died, I felt the worse pangs of anxiety. My worries had always been my constant friends. They’d hiss weary yarns of things to come. It started small, every so often. As I grew, so did they. Fear of being in public. Fear of others. My worries became anxiety and anxiety didn’t hiss behind closed teeth. Anxiety bellowed from its diaphragm. It shoved aside worry and overwhelmed me. Sometimes it propelled the contents of my stomach to my throat and other times it ripped the air from my lungs. If I was lucky it would turn the lights out for a few moments. 

I forbad my mother to die. Although so many times in my mind my anxiety slew her. Then, one day, she did as anxiety foretold and I forbad. She joined my father in the dark. I panicked and I cried. I took to bed for a month. A sabbatical at Arasaka was unheard of for baby cropos. I was spared the ax for my indulgence of grief because Abernathy cared for my father and pitied me. She couldn’t wield her power in Night City without my father and to repay him in death she showed me a rare mercy. Courtesy for a dying line of a former king. 

It was a professional courtesy Arthur was shocked to behold. He didn’t know Abernathy to be that type of woman nor did he know me to be that type of woman. A woman that trafficked in nepotism. No one did. I hoped to fucking God in that cot in Jackie's room, to even Satan himself, that Abernathy could do me one small mercy: keep Arthur alive. I forbad him to die. 

As it stood though, he was dead to me. When the first call went unanswered my mind raced. I thought of his chest rising and falling in Konpeki, Frankfurt below our golden perch. The second call, unanswered. His warm skin turning cold beneath mine. The third call, nothing. His body plunged into the brine and chemical tainted ocean, Pacifica. The fourth call, disconnected. His body in the dark flanked by barrels of corporate waste long forgotten. I wailed in the car. 

“He’s dead, Jackie. He’s dead, I-I-I can’t.” The air shot out of my lungs in quick gasping breathes as I dialed over and over again. Jackie’s words didn’t register. They couldn’t penetrate my anguish. I screamed until the formless sounds couldn’t escape anymore. I had stopped dialing now. A fist of stress clenched around my heart. The world went silent and stopped. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Then, suddenly, that inky black. 

I awoke in the bed. In Jackie’s room. With Jesus, the Devil, and my own wrecked mind. I closed my eyes. 

“I started over once to.” I heard Mama Welles’ voice. It got closer. I heard her soft footsteps. “I was your age almost.” I felt the mattress shift as she sat at my side. The bed sunk slightly to cushion her. I felt her hand touch my face. The ghost of Arthur’s touch asserted itself. I opened my eyes blinking back tears. 

“Do you know what the best thing about starting over is?” She stroked my hair. I had met Mama Welles only once before. A patriarch of the Valentinos. A woman built of stronger stuff than chrome and wiser than any piece of tech. In another life, she could be bigger, badder, and smarter than any Abernathy. If only the world had given her the opportunity. “You do it on your terms.” 

I knew what I had to do. For so long, I was the woman my father wanted me to be, a RAT. For Arthur, the mistress and his protege. His vault of secrets garnered through corporate espionage and pillow talk. His sweet, smart, savvy weapon for love and fucking. I was Arasaka’s worker bee. A cog in a greater more powerful machine whose movements I approximated by did not know. I was Abernathy’s pawn as limited as I was expendable. Not anymore. I was fucking Valerie Pondsmith. Arasaka spit me out, Night City caught me. It cradled my fall from grace. This was my city to burn. 

****

I stood at the sink. My face red from days of crying and mourning a life over and a lover likely dead. Jackie had driven me to the loud, roaring neon city where I bought the little bottles and the scissors to carve the new me. I looked at my hair. The high sleek pony it had been forced into since I was a teenager. A sleek feminine, disciplined, and subdued hairstyle. I cut it first. This was hair that Arthur had pulled to his liking and pushed aside to bite my neck. Hair he had gingerly slipped behind my ear. Hair that met the corporate guidelines in blandness. I was going to be fucking ostentatious. 

Corporate V’s hair was shiny brown and drab. So I cut it until it was transformed into a short even bob. Shorter than I wanted but beginners' luck must be real because it got more even the more I cut. I buzzed the left side. I ran my finger along my bald scalp. I turned my attention to the bottles on the counter. I scanned them and their labels. The directions might have well been in some alien language when I read them. New V wanted rose gold hair and she’ll get it. She’ll cut her hair in a bedroom sink while drinking cheap tequila. Then she’ll play with the bottles lined up on the sink until she has rose gold hair. I wiped hair off of the ratty old t-shirt Jackie lent me for the festivities. I puzzled over the bottles.

“I could help.” Mama Welles lingered in the doorway to Jackie’s room. 

“I’d like that.” I smiled. The first smile in days. 

She sat me in a chair. I watched her fill bottles and read directions. She measured and combed. My hair turned multiple unappealing shades of rust and dingy white before eventually, a shade of shiny light pink emerged. All the while Mama Welles and I coaxed each other into friendship. She told me of her husband. I told her more of my family, my father Michael, and his massive Arasaka empire. I told her of Arthur teary-eyed. I told her how I may have loved him but he treated me so poorly. She told me how she understood. I spoke Spanish for the first time since my mother died. Her language I had abandoned after her death. The words felt like a reminder that I didn’t just come from Arasaka. I came from her too. She came from the city. Just like my father was more than an Arasaka corpo, my mother was more than his shadow. I was more than that fucking building and the whims of that elderly tyrant who sat upon a throne in Japan while his pawns marched across the world collecting a profit. 

“I’m not your mother, Mija, but if you need a mother in Night City. I am always here.” She placed her hands on my shoulder as I observed the results of our afternoon. I inspected my new soft pink hair. Mama Welles grinned. I touched her hand on my shoulder and joined her in smiling.

I looked my new self in the eye for the first time. _Hello, V. Hello, Night City._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Also, not me, posting at regular intervals for the first time ever. lol 
> 
> How's everybody doing?

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in a while, so yeah. Since I'm waiting for the patch. 
> 
> Is anyone playing Cyberpunk 2077? I have some very complicated thoughts a little over a month after release. It's both garbage and my type of garbage at the same time. haha.


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